With the New York Times planning to create a “frequent reader program” that will charge those who read the paper’s content online, other newspapers are joining in the feeding frenzy.

Good idea?

Good question.

From The Kingsport (TN) Times-News

Two Gray residents, allegedly caught hiding out with about $300 worth of snack cakes taken from trucks parked outside a Kingsport bread company, were arrested Friday.

According to a Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office report, a deputy responded to the Merita Bread Co., 5446 Fort Henry Drive, about 11:38 p.m. An employee had called to report that he could hear someone in one of the trucks.

Upon arrival, the deputy found footprints leading into one truck that had about $300 worth of Hostess snacks – Cupcakes, MiniMuffins, Streusel Cakes, Twinkies, Zingers and 100 Calorie Cakes – piled up beside it.

A search of the area revealed the two men were hiding underneath the truck with the cakes stacked beside it.

Rip Torn: A few drinks too many

Rip Torn was so intoxicated when he broke into a Connecticut bank carrying a loaded gun that he thought he was home, taking off his hat and boots and leaving them by the door, according to court records.

The 78-year-old actor was wearing the same battered boots Monday when he was arraigned on several charges after spending the weekend in a police holding cell near his hometown of Salisbury, in northwestern Connecticut.

Torn, who did not enter a plea, was released on $100,000 bond a few hours later and waded through a phalanx of media to a friend’s waiting vehicle. He smiled and wished onlookers a nice day but did not answer questions about the arrest.

He is expected to enter an alcohol rehabilitation center in New York as early as Tuesday, according to his attorney.

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Police charged Coach Lisa Guttilla, 37, with misdemeanor sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of child, an unidentified 14-year-old girl on her team.

Their affair came to light after the girl’s mother saw the hickey on her daughter’s neck and demanded the explanation. The girl confessed.

Full story

A 13-year-old Valparaiso girl and a 12-year-old Valparaiso boy were referred to juvenile probation on charges of possession of child pornography and child exploitation. In adult court, the charges would carry a maximum penalty of 11 years in prison, but prosecutors expect the case to be handled in the juvenile system.

“Something needs to be done, but we think dealing with them through the juvenile court system is appropriate, so as not to saddle them with (consequences) from the adult system,” Porter County Prosecutor Brian Gensel said.

In the adult system, convicted offenders face not only prison time but also having to register as a sex offender.

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Did you bring protection?

According to the Guttmacher Institute, whose mission statement reads “advancing sexual and reproductive health worldwide,” the teenager pregnancy rate is up for the first time in a decade.

Teens, they say, are getting it on more and more and not worrying about little things like condoms or other methods of birth control.

Reports The Institute:

For the first time in more than a decade, the nation’s teen pregnancy rate rose 3% in 2006, reflecting increases in teen birth and abortion rates of 4% and 1%, respectively.

These new data from the Guttmacher Institute are especially noteworthy because they provide the first documentation of what experts have suspected for several years, based on trends in teens’ contraceptive use—that the overall teen pregnancy rate would increase in the mid-2000s following steep declines in the 1990s and a subsequent plateau in the early 2000s. The significant drop in teen pregnancy rates in the 1990s was overwhelmingly the result of more and better use of contraceptives among sexually active teens. However, this decline started to stall out in the early 2000s, at the same time that sex education programs aimed exclusively at promoting abstinence—and prohibited by law from discussing the benefits of contraception—became increasingly widespread and teens’ use of contraceptives declined.

“After more than a decade of progress, this reversal is deeply troubling,” says Heather Boonstra, Guttmacher Institute senior public policy associate. “It coincides with an increase in rigid abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, which received major funding boosts under the Bush administration. A strong body of research shows that these programs do not work. Fortunately, the heyday of this failed experiment has come to an end with the enactment of a new teen pregnancy prevention initiative that ensures that programs will be age-appropriate, medically accurate and, most importantly, based on research demonstrating their effectiveness.”

Swedish model Elin Nordegren (aka Mrs. Tiger Woods)

If the New York Daily News is correct, Tiger Wood’s blond Barbie-doll wife wants to be The Good Wife and stay with her philandering husband. At the same time, Tiger says he wants to get back in the game.

The game of golf that is.

No word yet on whether or not the disgraced king of the links is still linking up with any woman who’s willing.

Reports The Daily News:

Tiger Woods’ wife wants to save a marriage – but the disgraced golfer wants to save a money-making brand.

While Elin Nordegren is desperate for their two kids to have a dad, Woods “wants to go back to being a golf star with major endorsements,” a Florida insider told People.com Tuesday.

“He wants his clients, who have kids of their own, to think he is a good family man.”

Woods, the insider said, had hoped that his wife’s furor over his serial philandering “would die down so they could discuss the situation and behave rationally.”

According to some published reports, GOP Senator-elect Scott Brown, who posed nude for Cosmo mag back when he modeled, says he just might do it again.

We’ve heard about politicians who promise “full disclosure” but this may be more than we want to know.

Seems the actress (and wife of Michael Douglas) liked to do her garden work and run around naked when the family lived in Bermuda.

But since moving to New York to do a play, Jones says she can’t go wandering hither and yon in the buff.

“It’s just not something one does in Central Park,” she told David Letterman.

Letterman disagreed, saying people run naked around Central Park all the time.

Reports AFP:

Conan O'Brien (AP Photo)

An emotional Conan O’Brien has bid adieu to NBC, saying that walking away from US television’s long-running “The Tonight Show” was the most difficult decision of his life.

At times fighting back tears, O’Brien thanked his legions of fans Friday night for making “a sad situation joyous and inspirational,” urging them to fight cynicism over the ugly public feud that ended his seven-month tenure at the legendary late-night comedy show.

The audience at Universal Studios in Burbank, California replied in kind, giving him a standing ovation and chanting “Conan! Conan! Conan!” repeatedly.

After an experiment placing the funnyman’s predecessor in prime time garnered meager ratings and frustrated the network’s affiliates, NBC television announced it would bring Jay Leno back to the show he hosted for 17 years.

The settlement landed O’Brien a reported 45-million-dollar buyout — with the red-haired comedian pocketing around 32 million and the balance going to his staff — in a bid by NBC to end what has been a public relations disaster once and for all.

But during his last monologue for the show, the embattled host even found time to thank NBC, a network he has called home for over 20 years.

“Yes, we have our differences right now and yes, we’re going to go our separate ways,” he went on.

“But this company has been my home for most of my adult life. I am enormously proud of the work we have done together, and I want to thank NBC for making it all possible.”